Tuesday, 14 July 2015

Does dating a transgender person make you gay?

Gigi Gorgeous is one of my favourite bloggers/people. She's beautiful, strong, independent and transgender. I watch her videos religiously and google her constantly. A friend of mine also shares my obsession, she is also however a little more curious than I. When looking into Gigi online, shefound a forum disguising whether or not men would date someone who identified as a woman although they had been assigned a male at birth. The responses were generally the same old schmuck you'd imagine. 'Of course not, I'm not gay' - ' Doesn't matter how hot a girl is, if she used to have a dick I would never go there'.

It really got me thinking. In such a developed and supposedly intelligent and accepting modern world, why are we still so sceptical about the sexually (seemingly) unknown. Transgender individuals (nope, not transvestites!) are those who identify differently gender-wise to their birth sex.

Turns out [shocker!!] dating a transgender man or woman does not make you gay (or straight if you identify as gay and they used to be the opposite sex!). Because you are dating a man or a woman. That is what they identify as. That is what they live their life as. That is what they have always been and will always be. If you were gay (which there is absolutely nothing wrong with - ask America!) you would be dating someone of the same sex as yourself. That is the definition of being gay. If you are dating a transwoman/man, you are dating a man or a woman. That is it. I feel like I'm repeating myself a little but this topic is just so silly.

Writing this post I did start to wonder myself, identifying as a straight woman, if a guy I liked broke it too me that he used to be a girl, how would I feel? After a while of pondering I came to a conclusion. It wouldn't matter. At least not to me. If I really liked a person, I found them attractive, funny, if I was encapsulated by somebody's being, why would I let society's view of people who are born the wrong sex change that? Would I be self-conscious about the decision? Perhaps. Would people judge my decision? Almost definitely. Would I care? Nope.

People are people. Women are women. Men are men. It doesn't matter what we were born as. Who society told us to be, or who we should love. In short I think, as an end note, we should just let it go. Stop being so silly, and realise that people are different. Not worse, not unusual, not strange, different. As different as we all are.

If you identify as a different gender, then so be it. Screw other's opinions and live your life the way you actually want to, you'll be miserable if you don't. If you are attracted to someone who is transgender, don't feel ashamed about it, they are just as woman/man as anyone else you'll date. It is only society's perception of normality that makes you question your feelings, but it's you who knows whether they are real. If the whole topic makes you confused and uneasy, that's also okay. Transgender individuals have only very recently been realised by the press as an approachable topic. Maybe in the future they'll be taught about in schools and the positivity surrounding the topic will be extenuated. For now it may seem foreign to you, something new and strange and that's okay. It's different, but don't presume that's bad. Just be open about the world and the possibilities that it's giving to people who would otherwise be unhappy about being their assigned sex.